If you haven’t watched How
to Be Single, don’t. It’s a truly terrible movie. However, the one salient
part for me was when womanizing bartender Tom lets sweet girl Lucy into the
mysteries of the male species. “Listen,” he says. “Guys say what they mean all
the time. It’s just that girls only hear what they want to! Watch...”
At this point he walks up to a girl in the bar, slides his
arms around her waist and whips her around for a deep kiss. “Hey, Sweetheart,”
he purrs. “I just want you to know that I’m only using you and that this
relationship is heading nowhere. I want you to know because you’re so
beautiful, talented, and sexy that you deserve only the best partner, someone better
than me.” As Tom walks away, the girl turns back to her friend and giddily says,
“Awww! He’s so amazing! I really think he’s The One!”
I probably butchered that because I wrote it from memory,
but Tom’s point is still clear: Men say what they mean, but women choose not to
hear them. It’s a funny bit in an otherwise awful movie, but with all due
respect to Tom, I disagree. I’ve known lots of people who think it’s
easier and less messy to just – not say what they’re thinking.
I believe John Mayer said it best when he crooned, “Say what
you need to say, say what you need to say.” Would he have sung that if none of us needed reminding? The irony of this is that John Mayer is a womanizer,
a breed notorious for their inability to say what they need to say to the women
in their lives.
It seems, however, that the John Mayers of the world are
multiplying because -- Bartender Tom aside -- at any given time, there are lots
of guys not saying what they need to say. I think it’s a by-product of our
internet age. And there are so many
options now! If a guy decides he’d rather not go on a date after he set it up,
he doesn’t have to call to cancel anymore. He can send a text: “I’ m sorry, I can’t
come after all.” Or for the even more callous, an email: “Something came up,
won’t be there.” Or even better, a Facebook message: “Hope you get this. Not
gonna make it.” When sent at the last minute, when the woman is already at the
restaurant for a date planned a week ago, after being stood up once already by the same guy, these are pretty debilitating. Why?
Because they don’t say what they need to say. After all, if you don’t see someone’s
face when you leave her alone at a restaurant, it’s easy to forget she’s a real
person.
I think what men don’t realize is that women would much
rather be told, “Hey, I changed my mind,” or “I’m getting back together with my
ex.” But in this day and age, that doesn’t happen. Our world of screens –
phones, tablets, laptops, – has created distance between us and the people we
would once have just been honest with. When you no longer have to hear
someone’s voice after you tell her you’ve lost interest, it’s much easier to
pretend the whole thing never happened. She’s just a tiny phone screen, one
that can be easily deleted.
I’ve noticed a huge shift in dating recently. It’s much more
commonplace now to either A) cancel a date last-minute (when one party is
already at the restaurant); or to B) “ghost” – meaning, to
gradually increase the amount of space in between phone calls, dates, and texts
until one day, you have vanished from someone’s life altogether,
without any of the messy by-product of having an actual conversation.
That’s really sad to me because it seems that as a
civilization, we are becoming far less civilized than we used to be. And sadder
still, the men I’ve noticed this in most strongly are “Christian” guys, ones
who claim that their faith is the guiding force in their lives. I don’t get
that. It’s part of what made me begin the walk away from faith 2 years ago. I
understand that Christians aren’t better than anyone else. But should they be
so significantly worse? Should they treat the women in their lives as so much
less human than other men do? At least the non-Christian guys are honest. If we're stood up or ghosted by them, it’s
not such a shock to the system. I rather prefer it that way.
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